YONHAP NEWS

Obama faces tough challenge from stubborn Kim Jong-il over nuke ambitions

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, May 25 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President Barack Obama faces tough challenges from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il following Pyongyang's second nuclear test Monday in nearly three years, which came amid already growing skepticism about Kim's intent to denuclearize.

Some experts say the test represents a shift in Pyongyang's policy: from brinkmanship for further concessions to consolidating its status as a nuclear power. This could suggest to Obama that he must seek tougher sanctions to expedite the impoverished communist state's collapse.

   Others question China's role in the six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear programs, and accuse Beijing of being complacent with the status quo in order not to allow a unified Korea allied with the U.S., which would be a drain on its regional influence. They call on Obama to engage the North directly.

   Obama's supporters say there is still a chance the North will return to the multinational nuclear talks, which have plodded sluggishly for the past six years without a significant breakthrough.

   "There are two reasons" North Korea conducted the second test, said Richard Bush, director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies in the Brookings Institution.

   "First is to condition the Obama administration to take a softer line in the six-party talks," he said. "The second is to establish the credibility of its nuclear deterrent."

   Bush added that North Korea is looking to get out of the six-party talks and deal with the U.S. bilaterally, but said that "won't work."

   Obama's administration has been firm on continuing the six-party talks while also seeking direct engagement with Pyongyang.

   Bush expected Obama will "likely seek tougher enforcement and possible expansion of existing sanctions" for the nuclear test, and that the six-party talks will "be in suspension until North Korea sees the value in returning."

   The U.N. Security Council is convening later in the day to seek further sanctions on North Korea for the nuclear test, following those imposed after North Korea's April 5 rocket launch, which Pyongyang insists put a satellite into orbit.

   Bush stressed the importance of approaching the North "on a multilateral basis, particularly to include China."

   China, North Korea's biggest benefactor and closest communist ally, has played a pivotal role as the host of the six-party talks in breaking deadlocks over the past years, but not without complaints that Beijing has more to do.

   In a statement from Shanghai, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday, "These reported tests underscore the message our congressional delegation planned to deliver to top Chinese government leaders during our meetings later this week: the Chinese must use their influence to help bring North Korea to the table for the six-party talks. Today's announcement makes that need all the more urgent."

   Daniel Blumenthal, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said in a contribution to the Washington Post that Obama needs to engage the North directly without China's involvement.

   "Beijing is content to live with a nuclear and anti-Western North Korea," he said. "While China fears a collapsed North that would flood its struggling Northeast with refugees, it also fears a unified, democratic, prosperous Korea allied with the United States. China wants a puppet state in North Korea, which is why, far from joining in sanctions, it steadily increases its economic investment there."

   Suh Jae-jean, president of the Korea Institute for National Unification, echoed that theme when he spoke at forum here recently.

   "North Koreans fear that the growing Chinese economic influence on North Korea might eventually translate into Beijing's enhanced political influence in North Korea," Suh said, noting the growing trade and investment that China has made in the North for the past decade or so.

   Obama has been reaching out to former U.S. foes such as Iran, Cuba and Venezuela in what has been called "remedy diplomacy" -- an attempt to balance out the unilateral "cowboy diplomacy" pursued by the former George W. Bush administration.

   The new U.S. president has not done that yet for North Korea, instead reiterating calls for North Korea to come back to the six-party talks
Victor Cha, Georgetown University professor and inaugural holder of the new Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agrees that North Korea's nuclear test aims not only at "establishing themselves as a nuclear weapons state" but also at shifting to bilateral talks.

   Cha said, however, that North Korea is not interested in bilateral talks for its unilateral denuclearization.

   "They are interested in nuclear arms control negotiations with the U.S. where two established nuclear states negotiate mutual arms reductions, but never fully give up their weapons."

   U.S. officials and experts agree that internal instability after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's health failure prompted the North's nuclear test and other provocations in recent months.

   Scott Snyder, director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation, said, "North Korea's announcement of the test shows that a primary political target of North Korea's nuclear test is domestic."

   The test is tied "directly to the leadership succession issue, underscoring an apparent fear that external actors will take advantage of unfolding succession arrangements to intervene or destabilize North Korea," Snyder said.

   Bruce Klingner, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, agreed.

   "The change in North Korean objectives may have been triggered by Kim Jong-il's health crisis and a desire to achieve nuclear objectives prior to his death or a formal succession," he said. "It is evident that Pyongyang is now intent on achieving strategic technological achievements rather than gaining tactical negotiating leverage."

   Leon Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, last week discussed "legitimate questions being raised about the internal stability of North Korea, given Kim Jong-Il's health problems, uncertainty about succession, the weak economy, and the persistent food shortages."

   Former U.S. President Bill Clinton also said last week that, "Whenever people who have power in a closed society have any concerns about losing it, things tend to be degenerating to the lowest possible denominator."

   Kim Jong-il is believed to have suffered a stroke and undergone surgery last summer. The reclusive North Korean leader attended a parliamentary meeting last month, limping on his left leg and with his left hand swollen.

   Reports said Kim has selected his third and youngest son, Jong-un, 26, as his heir apparent and appointed him as a mid-level official at the North's all-powerful National Defense Commission, through which Kim Jong-il controls the military as well as political and economic affairs.

   The North's parliament last month appointed Chang Song-thaek, Kim's brother-in-law, to the National Defense Commission, apparently to allow Chang to play a caretaker role in a smooth power transition.

   Against this backdrop, there is suspicion that North Korea's hardline military has taken advantage of recent instability to derail the multilateral nuclear talks and strengthen the communist state's military might.

   According to sources, the North's former pointman on South Korean issues was executed last year in what appeared to be the outcome of a power struggle with regime hardliners.

   Reports said the North Korean official was a scapegoat for worsening relations with the new conservative South Korean government, led by President Lee Myung-bak, amid complaints in Pyongyang that rapprochement under Lee's liberal predecessors had imbued North Koreans with fantasies of capitalism.

   Denny Roy, senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, said, "Pyongyang is focused on internal domestic issues such as leadership succession and just wants to put in place a credible deterrent to ensure they are not bothered from the outside."

   Roy forecast "a long period ahead of little or no progress toward the goals of denuclearization and encouraging meaningful reform in North Korea," and suggested "the military is driving North Korean policy, so future moves will be conservative and highly suspicious of the foreign powers."

   hdh@yna.co.kr
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